“Dibs on a bed,” Maria said from the back of the Escalade, “those of you who didn’t end up scrunched back here can take last pick.”

“Hey, that’s not exactly fair: you’re smaller than we are,” Alan retorted

Maria gave a humph, “Doesn’t matter. I called it first.”

“Yeah? We’ll see ab—”

“There are people in the road,” Anna suddenly said, “slow down!”

“That’s the religious fuckers and I’m not stopping.” Richard put the pedal to the metal and I could hear the engine rev.

“What’s going on up there?” I asked. “There’s people in the streets?” I leaned forward to see dozens upon dozens of True Believers in a sort of blockade ahead of us.

“I don’t know what they’re doing, but I’m not stopping!” Richard kept driving at full speed towards their little blockade.

“TURN IT AROUND THEN IDIOT!” Anna yelled at him.

“And go WHERE?” Richard yelled back “There’s NOWHERE TO TURN AROUND. LOOK, THEY’VE ALREADY SEEN US.”

“Are we being attacked?” Maria asked.

Anna shook his arm. “So you’re just gonna run them over?”

“I’m not doing anything but driving! If they don’t move that’s on them.”

“Just stop!” Anna yelled.

“And then WHAT? They’re going to kidnap us! IT’S US, OR THEM.” By now we were just fifteen seconds from reaching their blockade. “HOLD ON!” Richard yelled.

“Strap in!” I yelled at everyone. “Just grab onto something.” I turned back to Richard, “DON’T STOP.” There was no turning back now. Into the lion’s den…Everything was happening so fast.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Maria was without a seat belt so she hunkered down, bracing herself, all her banter with Alan forgotten.

Time felt like it was slowing down as Richard plowed directly through the road block. The entire SUV shook and jerked to the left as he blasted through the front bumper of a small two-door sports car. I almost flew out of my seat, but my seat belt caught me by the waist and neck.

We were all tossed up, and I heard two True Believers tumbling over the roof on impact. The SUV rocked violently immediately after breaking through, like we were going to flip.

“HOLD ON.” Richard screamed while grabbing the wheel for dear life. Two or three seconds passed that felt like an eternity, where it felt like we were going to roll. And then we stabilized.

“Jesus Christ!” Anna yelled, “you idiot!”

“HAAHAHHAHA,” Richard was laughing like a madman.

“It’s not over!” Lucas said. He had slid, so that he was nearly upside down, but could see out the back window. “They’re chasing!”

I could see pairs of headlights appear one after the other as they started to pursue. “Fucking hell.” I groaned. “Can’t people just mind their own business?” I never understood why everyone needed to micromanage everyone else. This True Believer bullshit originated from a desire to control no doubt. “Try and lose them.” I said.

“I am trying!” He was already flooring it, and I could see on the speedometer we were traveling over 100mph. “We’re gonna have to go into the city.”

“That wasn’t the plan,” Jessica said. “Just find somewhere we can pull over and lose them in the darkness, we can walk the rest of the way.”

Richard looked back at us using the mirror.

“The rest of the way? We’re about two minutes out! Look behind you, we aren’t losing them.” There were two cars gaining behind us. “There is no losing them.”

I leaned over towards Richard. “Keep going. If we stop now it’s a fight and they outnumber us two to one at least.” There were at least a dozen people just standing in the street, who knew how many numerous others were resting in the vehicles. Did they have every major entrance to the city blocked up? The size of this cult was unbelievable.

It didn’t take more than thirty seconds for the two chasing vehicles to be nearly side by side with us. The passengers waved through the windows as if that was going to get Richard to pull over, and when that didn’t work they slammed their vehicle directly into the driver’s side of our SUV.

“What the fuck is that?” Maria yelled. “Are they insane?” The whole vehicle shook and rattled. Richard had to slam the breaks to keep from crashing, and then he floored it again in order to rear-end one of the cars.

“Come here!” Alan grabbed Maria and kept her tightly tucked behind his shield. In the case of an actual crash she would have gone flying without his protection.

“Are you crazy?” Anna was nearly hysterical, and was worried about having her in the front seat. She was just moments away from grabbing the wheel and trying to forcefully stop Richard from driving.

“Anna control yourself!” I shouted, “Richard, do whatever it takes! Our lives are in your hands.” I put that weight on him and Anna definitely heard it as well. There was a moment of silence from the front as she realized just how dire the situation was.

“Just thirty more seconds!” We were coming up to the border of where it would be considered Rotterdam. “These fuckers!” Richard said. The two vehicles on our side were swerving and threatening to smack into him. His knuckles showed white as he gripped the wheel and then swung hard right.

I felt my seat belt dig harder into my neck than before and we shook as Richard smashed into the chasing vehicle. The car to our right swerved wildly and then eventually completely turned sideways before rolling off the road and smashing into a metal fence thirty or forty feet in the distance. It was a brutal impact and I doubted the driver or passengers survived.

That gave Richard a moment of respite, but only a moment. Not even ten seconds later and another vehicle was coming up from behind. They didn’t even bother to come alongside but instead smashed into our bumper. “Just a little longer everyone!” I yelled. “Richard, how are we doing?”

“GET READY FOR IMPACT!” he replied.

“Just pull over!” Maria said.

“I can’t pull over, even if I wanted to!” And as Richard said that, the other vehicle smacked into us from behind again.

“It’s fine, I got you,” Alan said to Maria, “sit between my legs.” She didn’t argue and simply turned around before moving in between his knees and locking both hands around them. She wouldn’t be flung around in case something bad happened, at least.

I grabbed at the handle that came from just above the side door. Holding it made me realize just how thick with sweat my hands were. I took a good look at everyone around me, every face. No matter what happened I’d not forget.

A moment after that thought we were smashed into from the side. The vehicle shook and wobbled as I bounced in my seat. Tires screeched and we started to spin. Weightlessness overcame me as I could feel myself flipping upside down. My ears felt like they were going to pop inside my skull as I swung wildly like clothes being dried. My brain was turning to scrambled eggs.

The stop came abruptly as the world around me exploded. Every window was shattered and sharp shards of glass flew through from every direction through the vehicle. We had smashed into something and rolled to a stop. “Is everyone okay?” I yelled as I tried to gather my bearings.

My hands fumbled for the seat belt. The strap was digging into my side as I dangled sideways. The vehicle was on its side fortunately and not completely upside down. One after another the others gave affirmation they were okay.

“Maria, help them out of their belts.” She was the only one who wasn’t restrained, and thankfully Alan had enough STR to keep her from flying. When we started flipping and I was thrown like a doll, he had planted his arms and feet so hard that he was his own roll cage. Jessica had done the same. Thomas and I weren’t so lucky.

We quickly unstrapped and crawled up and out of the vehicle. Our feet landed one at a time on shattered cubes of glass. It was some store front we crashed into, and thankfully, the display had slowed our impact at least a bit. I couldn’t be sure how badly we would have been hurt if the wall was a solid brick or concrete.

“We can’t stop.” Jessica said, “They’re here.”

“Let’s just kill them!” Alan said.

“No, we can’t win that fight!” I said. By the time we even finished off our pursuers, there would be far more arriving than we could manage. “Control yourself!” I said to Alan. “I can’t use my undead squad right now!” My undead troops were an essential part of our battle force.

“This isn’t time to argue!” Jessica said, “they’re HERE.” And as she spoke, I could see at least six vehicles pull up with four people leaping out of each.

“Lead the way!” I told Jessica. “Maria, buy time please!”

Maria seemed at a loss, but eventually understood. She pulled out her bow and shot an explosive arrow at the farthest of the two front cars that had crashed with us.

Her arrow struck directly to the gas tank, and she shot another two for good measure into the other vehicle. With the three going off together, it created a movie-level explosion.

The cover provided by the flame and smoke gave us a precious few sections, allowing Jessica to pull us out the back. “We have to assume they can track,” she said and I was sure she was right. There was so many of them, it was unrealistic to think they couldn’t. She started to run in the darkness, and God was it a nightmare maneuvering at a run.

Almost no light reached the alley we were in as we ran through pitch blackness. Necrotic Vision showed the endless amount of auras around us as Jessica expertly brought us through the streets without triggering any mobs. Some of the auras I was seeing were on a level that was much higher than any I’d ever experienced.

“They’re still right behind us!” Lucas yelled from the back. Our pursuers were close enough for me to hear them yelling behind us. They were insane, haphazardly aggroing the mobs they ran past with no care for their lives. I watched two of them get mauled down in seconds by a blur of teeth and claw. The others didn’t even stop at the screams of their companions.

Jessica ran one block deeper and cut between a convenience store before crossing the street. We were directly in front of a twenty or thirty-floor building, it was hard to see the top as it vanished into the darkness. Fortunately, moonlight was visible on the street just in front. I used Vast Shadows and pulled out my undead squad.

“Inside!” Jessica yelled at everyone.

During our flight we had aggroed a lot less enemies than the cultists had. It was clear now that they were probably too low level to be here. Even we were on the cusp of that breakpoint, and I doubted the majority of True Believers were even over level fifteen. They were pulling stuff from so far away due to their low level.

We had managed to trigger only three mobs, which was a monumental achievement and a testament to Jessica’s quick wit. Unfortunately, each of those enemies was stronger than the Blood Apes that had come out of the overflowing dungeon entrances. Those and the True Believers combined were not a fight we could take.

“I’m last in.” I let everyone rush past me as I looked back. The enemies that we had aggroed rushed in our direction while the True Believers were being repeatedly cut down by the train of monsters they had pulled. My neck had been prickling the entire time already, but seeing those lights of life being extinguished left a lingering fear in my heart. I got a brief look at one of the monsters chasing us, it was a wolf man—a Lycanthrope. As it entered the moonlight I could see an eight-foot frame full of power, and then it howled.

I rushed behind Thomas and Maria without taking a second look back. That thing was bad news at night. The feeling I got while looking at it was not pleasant. Fortunately, monsters had a tether range and as long as that also worked vertically, we could lose them by going up the stairs. The problem was everything was so fucking dark.

“Stairwell is here!” The situational awareness Jessica had developed was superhuman. The only thing I could see in front of me was Thomas’s back, and she had somehow found the stairwell in a lobby that could hold at least a hundred people comfortably.

Thomas kept calling, “Here,” just in front of me so I could follow his voice. It was thoughtful, but Necrotic Vision kept me from losing his trail. I raced behind him towards Jessica’s voice. Her call echoed, and then a loud crash from the front entrance drowned it out of existence. The roar of the Lycanthrope behind us put me on edge, and put a fire under my ass.

We reached the door to a stairwell in a little under ten seconds, where Jessica was waiting and hurrying us in. She laid a Quagmire trap directly under the door and then slammed it shut behind her. “That should buy a bit of time.”

We raced upwards, and had only made it three or four flights when the door exploded into a mess below. The sound of claws tapping into tile and slashing into metal echoed upward as the Lycanthrope rushed up the staircase.

My undead squad were trailing behind me, and so incredibly clumsy. I had taken them out in case, but they were almost useless here. It was clear, too, that the Lycanthrope was going to reach us before it tethered. “Can we fight?” I asked Jessica.

“No, there are two other powerful mobs a dozen seconds behind. It also seems like a few True Believers made it into the lobby.”

“Keep going then!” I said. “Anna come to me.”

Anna allowed Thomas and Maria to pass her. Once next to me we rushed up the staircase side by side. “You’re gonna need to do what we did back in the Miasma,” I gasped, “create a floor of ice.”

“Right now?”

“In a few floors.” We only had so much time. We were trying to ascend stairs in pitch black darkness. Even if the lights were on, we probably couldn’t outrun this Lycanthrope, let alone given how clumsy we were now. “Jessica! Lay a Quagmire trap three floors up!” I shouted. Anna nodded on my words, she already knew what to expect.

We had gone more than ten flights of stairs already. What’s three more? I thought. My lack of physical strength and endurance was becoming evident. I could hear Thomas and Anna breathing heavily along with me, so it was just a caster problem. No one else was struggling, and I wondered about using some of my stat points to help.

I suddenly felt a chill race up my arm that jolted me out of my thoughts. It was Anna pulling out the Staff of Piercing Ice, and I decided against any stat allocation. The situation was manageable.

“One more turn,” I reminded her.

Anna gave me a nod and then rushed around the corner before ascending the last flight of stairs. She used her spell to coat the floor, until it was a solid slide of perfectly smooth ice. No amount of traction would get you up that ramp.

I positioned my undead just at the top of the stairs above the ice and we continued to ascend. They would be within my range there, and could fight it off for more time if needed. It took the Lycanthrope just a few seconds to reach our trap, and attempt to ascend.

We all listened in silence as the monster below us banged into the wall with great speed after slipping. Metal rattled as the werewolf went wild in the staircase. It eventually realized it could jump across the ice, but my undead were there at the top stacked together. The Lycanthrope landed in an embrace of swords that sent it hurdling backwards again, this time shrieking from its wounds.

“Here!” Jessica suddenly stopped at Floor Seventeen and opened the stairwell door. The curious stares she got were asking, ‘why here?’ “This is the only floor with no enemies,” she explained.

“Wait, these things are spawning inside the buildings?” Lucas asked.

“Above; below; they are everywhere,” Jessica replied. She didn’t explain anymore and simply rushed down the hallway, we went past hundreds of rooms before she stopped. “The Lycanthrope and the other two enemies stopped chasing.”

“So we’re good now?” Richard asked before leaning against the wall and then sliding down to his ass. I wasn’t the only one to let out a sigh of relief.